Yesterday, I switched from Overcast to Downcast, which I had used several years ago. I switched because the order of my podcasts in Overcast kept getting jumbled up and not in alphabetical order anymore. I imported all of my podcasts to Downcast and set everything up. However, the podcasts are refreshing and showing up in the podcast section. But it says that my playlist that I set up to download all new episodes is empty. I know I must be doing something wrong. I am using an iPhone 15 with the latest iOS update. Thanks.
Comments
Would be happy to help
I would love to help you. I recently switched from Overcast to Downcast as well. I know this is an obvious thing, so forgive me if you've checked everything, but did you go through your playlist settings and make sure that include all podcasts is on? You should also check the settings for which episodes are included such as unplayed, in progress, etc. just to make sure all of that looks right. It's easy to change a setting by accident that messes everything up.
Problems with playlist in Downcast.
Thanks for your help and the tips you gave me. Nothing is too obvious. I’m probably overlooking something very simple. I will go back and check all of those settings. I was afraid that if I checked all podcast and played podcast that everything would download from a long time ago. But I will check and get back to you.
Overloaded playlist in Downcast now.
I went back into the playlist settings and checked everything on so that everything would download. But now I have 8636 podcast in my playlist. Is there an easy way to get rid of most of them? Or should I just start over?
Managing playlists
You said you turned everything on, so you might want to go back and turn off played episodes, so you don't have those in there. As far as the fastest way to delete a bunch of episodes, there is an edit button on the bottom right when your in the playlist. If you double tap that, you can select multiple episodes and delete them all at the same time. That's the fastest way I've found.
Managing playlist.
I just decided to delete the whole playlist and started over again. I only included unplayed episodes and limited it to new episodes. We’ll see what happens when it refreshes again. Thanks for your help. I’m getting really frustrated because I got so tired of overcast and I hope once I get this set up, it’ll be OK.
Downcast
I hope it works for you. I've been liking Downcast for the most part since I switched. The only really big aggravation I have with it is that podcasts don't seem to be refreshing until I open the app even though I have background app refresh turned on. If you notice this and find a fix, I'd love to hear about it.
Refresh rate
One can set the rate at which the app refreshes in Settings. It’s near the top under automatic feed refreshing. There is a schedule you can set.
Refresh rate.
I did see that and I have it set to every hour. I might change it to less frequently later on. Hopefully, I can get this straightened out pretty soon. I should have a couple podcast downloading shortly this evening and hopefully they will show up in the playlist, not just in the podcast section.
Feed Refreshing Rate
Yes, and I have set mine to refresh every hour, which is the fastest setting, but it doesn't seem to do it in the background, as I said. For example, I listen to a podcast every morning that is published around 4:00-5:00, but when I open the app at 6:30, I don't see it in the playlist until I give the app time to refresh everything after opening it. I usually have to go out and back into the playlist a couple times before it shows up. If background refresh was working properly, I would expect to see that podcast in my playlist as soon as I open the app at 6:30, since the automatic feed refreshing should have happened since the new episode was published.
Refresh rate.
I thought I saw there was a help section or some documentation within the app. I might try to read up a little bit and see if I’m missing something or if it’s just not behaving correctly. Thanks for all the wonderful responses that I’ve gotten. We will all continue to investigate. That’s what a community does.
I think I solved my Downcast issue.
Once I deleted my old playlist and started over with only unplayed and new episodes on it seems to have worked. But it doesn’t refresh automatically. I have to open it first. But I’m really excited because now I have three new podcast in my playlist. Thanks to all for your help. I hope that I don’t have to do it again because I’m not exactly sure what the trick was.
Automatic refresh
My experience is that Downcast must be active in your task list for it to update automatically. If I do this, I do get notifications when it updates.
Doesn't work for me
It isn't updating for me even though I always leave it running. I have to open the app before it updates.
You are correct
Samanthia, sounds like you are more aware than I. Usually I don’t enable background refresh for my apps and now that you mention it I do hit refresh when opening the app. Another great podcast app is iCatcher! and it seems to refresh. It does what I expect after I figured out all the settings. I use them both and like the different ways to discover new podcasts.